Gianpaolo Baiocchi, associate professor of individualized studies and sociology and director of the Urban Democracy Lab at the Gallatin School at NYU, will explore how the recent wave of public protests in Brazil are related to the limits of representative democracy . He is a sociologist and an ethnographer interested in questions of politics and culture, critical social theory, and cities. His publications and on-going research focuses on innovative forms of democracy, participatory governance, and on-the-ground civic life, cities, culture and inequalities.
While much of his research and writing has been about Brazil, his most recent book, The Civic Imagination (co-authored with Elizabeth Bennett, Alissa Cordner, Stephanie Savell, and Peter Klein) examines the contours and limits of the democratic conversation in the US today. His most recent research, with Ernesto Ganuza, has examined the global travel and translation of blueprints of urban participation in the current era. An engaged scholar, Gianpaolo was one of the founders of the Participatory Budgeting Project and continues to work with groups improving urban democracy.